Abstract
Hydropower is one environmentally friendly option for meeting these energy demands. Because such technologies do not require a weir or a dam, they may be used with minimal environmental effect. The drag-based Savonius turbine is characterized by working at low-flow speeds which fits well the natural water streams. In spite of its simple and robust design, the Savonius turbine suffers from low efficiency and high static torque fluctuations. In view of this, CFD-based optimization is applied to a Savonius-type hydrokinetic turbine inspired by a couple of swimming Koi fish. The two main design parameters; overlap ratio and gap ratio are used in this paper to define the gap between the blades. The maximum power coefficient can be obtained by employing an evolution strategy optimization technique over the constructed metamodel. The results revealed that the optimal design for the bio-inspired Savonius hydrokinetic turbine corresponds to overlap and gap ratios of 0.2085 and 0.0057, respectively. The optimal configuration generates a maximum power coefficient of 0.2521, which is 17.6% higher than that for a conventional shape at the same tip speed ratio. The new bio-inspired design performs better than the conventional Savonius hydrokinetic turbine for the considered operating range.
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